I’ve never heard of it before, but it’s really all quite fascinating. In short, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is when someone keeps making mistakes or coming to wrong conclusions but their incompetence robs them of the ability to realise it. Some of the hypotheses of this effect include:

Incompetent people tend to overestimate their own level of skill

Incompetent people tend to fail to recognise skills in others

Incompetent people tend to fail to recognise the extent of their own inadequacies

David Dunning and Justin Kruger who came up with this theory won an Ig Nobel Prize for their report “Unskilled and Unaware Of It: How Difficulties In Recognising Ones Own Incompetence Lead To Inflated Self-Assessments“. The Ig Nobel Prize is given each year for 10 achievements that first make people laugh and then makes them think.

Boy, did I had a chuckle when some people instantly sprang to mind as I read about it all😉

To give credit where credit is due, Plato first wrote about this effect in the Apology : Socrates says “I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom ….. When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and wiser still by himself.”

Socrates added : “I went and tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me.”

Dunning and Kruger should have written another paper about how their subjects reacted when told of their inflated view of themselves.

After Jonathan had told me about the DK effect (sounds especially good as initials) I followed a couple of the links and I liked the “lake wobegone” effect, where more than 50% of people think they are above average. How many people (especially men) do not think they are better drivers than the average? Maybe we all have a touch of the DK about us.
I think I might give up and IT and take up psychology as I think there is a link between alcohol and both the DK and the Lake Wobegon effect. After 3 pints I am a brilliant dancer, a demon pool player and irresistable to women…But nobody else can see it.
BTW from the Lake Wobegon page – did you realise most people have an above average number of legs? Makes you realise why “average” can be a tricky term…

i think that the dunning-kruger effect is great, it protects us against hating ourselves, as we don’t notice all the mistakes we make. here is a neat video about how people over estimate thier ability:

[…] use of the technology, teach {or, more usually, preach} others and so proclaim on it. {See Dunning Kruger effect, the certainty of idiots}. I’m certainly not arguing against going to presentations, reading blogs and books and […]

[…] been a bit of a thread between my and Richard Foote’s blog about the Dunning-Kruger effect. This is his post on it. The Dunning Kruger effect (Jonathan Lewis told us what it was called) is where people have an […]